‘Sindy, when did you first notice your perceptions of reality change?’

‘It was just awful… I was devastated, we’d become so close.’

‘You weren’t always close then… Sindy, I understand how distressing this was for you, but you didn’t answer my question. When did you first become aware that something was different?’

‘I was sixteen at the time.’

‘And this is the first time things looked different to you?’

‘I couldn’t see him lying there, and I couldn’t see the blood, it was as if my mind wouldn’t let me. I guess I superimposed a blank canvass and painted a nicer picture.’

‘Sindy, I’m sorry you were faced with such a traumatic experience at such a young age.’

‘It’s just one of those things.’

‘I understand. You mentioned that you’d become close.’

‘Yes, we had, but it hadn’t always been like that. He was just vile when I was a child. He would lose his temper with me… And one time, I ended up in hospital… He never abused me though, not in that way.’

‘Okay.’

‘Erm… I lied before. It didn’t start when I was sixteen. I started losing my mind before that.’

‘Do you want to tell me about it?’

‘No.’

‘Did somebody hurt you?’

‘There was more than just one person.’

‘Sindy, I can see these memories are very painful for you. I’m not going to ask you to talk about this right now, but if you want we could do some work today to try to resolve how you’re feeling.’

‘We won’t talk about the abuse?’

‘Not unless you feel you want to. We can work on reducing the anxiety you’re feeling.’

‘Yes, okay, Susan. That would be good, thank you.’

‘Okay, Sindy, close your eyes and take a few minutes to relax. Remember, you can halt the session at any time.’

‘I’m ready.’

‘First of all, bring your mind into the room and concentrate on only the sound of the clock…

….now, shift your awareness, you hear the creaks, the voices of those who pass by, perhaps the sound of a car in the distance. You hear that?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m right here and you are safe. Allow yourself to enjoy these sounds for a few moments…

…are you happy to go on now?’

‘Yes, Susan, I’m very comfortable.’

‘Now, Sindy, the feelings of sadness and anxiety you’ve been experiencing, can you tell me where in your body you sense them.’

‘It’s in my chest.’

‘Good. Are you able to describe the sensation?’

‘It’s fear, terror.’

‘That’s a good way of labelling the emotions, can you give me an idea of how it feels physically?’

‘Erm… Well…’

‘Tight, weighty, cold, a colour even? Describe the personality of the feeling, it will give it an identity and help us to understand its purpose.’

‘Black. It rushes me and its cold, like it’s putting a freeze on me. It paralyses me.’

‘That sounds like quite an overwhelming thing to experience… Are there any other sensations in any other parts of your body?’

‘My legs are like jelly… My whole body… I feel as though I’ve been trampled over.’

‘Okay, Sindy, thank you. Today we can try to get to know the trampled feeling a little better. Find out why it is there. Are you happy to continue?’

‘Yes.’

‘Okay, now allow those feelings to sit with you as you relax, up through your feet and legs and stomach and chest and mind… Okay, ready to continue?’

‘Yes.’

‘This time, Sindy, focus your energy on the centre of your forehead. Feel your mind become open to hearing what these feelings are trying to communicate to you…

…Now, as your mind opens, imagine you are alone in your own private cinema with a huge screen laid out before you.’

‘I see it.’

‘Ask the trampled feeling to show you the first time it came into your life… Do you see a scene?’

‘I do. I see myself as a child.’

‘How old is little Sindy?’

‘She’s ten years old.’

‘Can you describe the scene.’

‘She’s searching for her doll. Her mother is laughing at her… She… She has to find her Doll, Bessie. The lighting in the room has become funny, everything has changed for her.’

‘Has it changed for you?’

‘No, I see clearly.’

‘Good, you can only help little Sindy if you keep your distance from her right now.’

‘Okay.’

‘What is happening now?’

‘Her mother has told her Bessie has been thrown away with the rubbish. Sindy is curled up on the floor sobbing.’

‘Okay, Sindy, you are in control of this scene. Can you pause the scene please?’

‘Yes, it’s paused.’

‘Do you feel as though you can enter the scene, just to talk to her. We can try to help her today if that’s what you want?’

‘I do… I am in the scene. Susan, shall I talk to her?’

‘Yes, calmly tell her you are her from the future and nobody can harm her. You just want to talk to her…

…How does she feel about this?’

‘She’s pleased to see me.’

‘Ask her to tell you how life is for her.’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you able to describe what she is saying?

…Sindy?

…Sindy, can you talk to me please?

…Sindy?

…Sindy?’

‘I can’t. I’m afraid of her.’

‘Who?’

‘My mother.’

‘Is the scene still paused…

…Sindy, I am Susan, you are safe. You are grown up. You are in control.’

‘My Nana is dead…’

‘Sindy, gently pull back from little Sindy, reassure her you are there to help, but the best way for you to do that is by listening.’

‘Mummy, please don’t take Bessie away from me…’

‘Sindy, pull back, you must separate from little Sindy.

‘I can’t.’

‘Yes you can, Sindy. You are already part way there, pull back and open your eyes…

…Good. Take a few moments to compose yourself.’

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that. I couldn’t help but go her. She needed me.’

‘Yes, she does, but she needs grown up Sindy. You did good, we’ve learned a lot. Do you think you can go back into the scene?’

‘Now! Oh, well… No, I can’t go back in there, not ever.’

‘Sindy, you came to me for a reason. This isn’t going to be easy, but together we can do it.’

‘I think it was a mistake. I’m okay. This is all in the past. I’m sorry I wasted your time. Look, I’ve got to go, I appreciate what you’ve done… Oh, I’m sorry, I’ll replace it.’

Hi, I thought I would share this story. Again, it’s one of my early ones. I feel my story writing has evolved a lot since this time but still, I believe this story gives a little into insight to what “Belief” truly is and how strong those convictions can be. In spite of everything, this girl never lets go. I hope you enjoy this.

Where Dead

By

Deborah Anderson

I was twenty-six years old when I died. I don’t recall how it happened, all I know is that one minute I was driving along, singing away to my favourite song, and the next I was in the worst pain imaginable. Then I blacked out. That’s it. I can only conclude I was in a car wreck, you know, duh, what with being in my car at the time.

Death couldn’t really have come at a worse time for me. My life had just started to get interesting. I had only been married six-months. I’d not long had a big promotion at work – so much more responsibility, I was finally getting somewhere. I loved my job. I loved my life. I planned on a family of my own someday.

I miss my home and my husband.

He’s with someone else now. I guess he must’ve met her within a couple of weeks of my passing. He couldn’t have loved me that much, I guess. Still, I’m glad he’s not alone because, in spite of everything, I still love him. I want him to be happy. Mercifully, I no longer hear anything of him or his new relationship. It appears to me, death somehow dilutes relationships and the love, on the part of the living partner, begins to perish. On my passing, my husband’s connection to me grew distant, and then he was gone. Shouldn’t the love in my “heart” have died too? I mean, I died, so why do I still feel such loss? It’s a good thing I can no longer cry, or I’d never stop.

I wish I could tell you where I am, but I don’t know. It seems that I am nowhere. I hear my mother cry. The sound rings in my ears and haunts my hours. It’s not right for a daughter to hear that. I feel my father’s silence and that sound is even more intolerable. I sense the weight of their grief so terribly. It’s unbearable. I know it’s selfish of me to think of myself in their time of suffering but I can’t help it, I am sad too. Maybe this is why I am not in Heaven. I don’t deserve to be because I am selfish, perhaps I have always been this way. I don’t recall myself being so but then, we never see our true selves, do we? Maybe only death can bring such vile revelations to light.

I deserved to die, I must have done. As the voices say, it was my time. I wonder why I am not in hell. I was raised up in the belief that evil people went to hell. My family accepted this and so did our church. As I grew into an adult, my belief in this became stronger. I saw myself as being one of the good guys. How wrong I had been… but… I am sure I tried to be a good person, I really am.

So why am I nowhere? Or is nowhere hell? It sure feels like it at times, and what about Purgatory? Is that where I am? If so, then my despicable self-pity in the face of my family’s misery has probably made several down payments on a one-way ticket to the abyss. I never believed in Purgatory, I mean, I always figured we were saved, and so what was the point. I feel silly for believing that now, especially when it is quite possible that I am in purgatory. One by one, my beliefs are shattered by this state of nothingness.

So, I made this list, as silly as it seems. Of course, I made it in my mind as I have no hands. The only thing I have is sound and I hear silence most of the time. My own thoughts are little compensation for real conversation. I hear voices and sense the feelings of others, but it brings me little comfort. I even heard my sister apologize for “all the bad things she did to me as a child”. I mean, really, cutting off my doll’s head and locking me in the closet so she could spend time with her boyfriend instead of babysitting, were hardly crimes of the century, and nothing compared to the stuff I pulled on her. I was far from sweet and innocent. We used to laugh about that kind of stuff, well, not anymore. As sad as I am to say it, the relationship we shared has long gone. She’s forgotten who I was. I am now St. Serena, perfect in every way. It just makes me so mad!

As it goes, I know that I am telepathic, or at least I think I am, depending on where my latest deductions deem my whereabouts to be. I feel people’s feelings and think their thoughts, sort of. Anyway, as I was saying… I mean… hallucinating… I am dead, but I don’t actually know that for sure, so I have considered alternatives. Have I actually ever existed at all, am I trapped in some type of life machine that creates a reality all of its own and it isn’t working properly. Perhaps there is a bunch of people stood around my naked body, while my skull sits open and they probe my brain in a vain attempt to get it operational again. I mean… where the am I, am I anywhere. I once read this book about this guy who got all his limbs blown off in the war and went deaf, dumb and blind. He imagined that a rat was chewing on his open sores. It scared the shit out of me for ages. I think the book was called “Johnny Got His Gun”. I’m not very good at remembering names of stuff. Well, maybe I’m just like Joe, the guy in that book, lying in bed with a rat chewing on my stump and I don’t even know it because I’ve lost the ability to feel. Please, oh, please, God, don’t let there be rat near me. I suppose really shouldn’t give away my fears, just in case Satan is already busy creating my own special room 101, that’s if I’m not already in it.

I want to go home now. I mean to Heaven. I call out for GOD all the time. I beg him to come and save me, just as he promised he would do, but he doesn’t come. He just leaves me here to rot with this rat chewing my tongue out my head, or maybe it’s maggots and I’m in my coffin in one of those bee sting stupors that can’t be picked up on an autopsy or something. Even if they had the bells these days, I couldn’t be a dead ringer because I have no body. What am I?

I managed to dwindle my list down. I’m a spirit, right? Then why doesn’t God save me? It must be because I’m bad. I never believed there were a special group who were entitled to get into Heaven, and the rest of us were left out in the cold. I thought we all went – if we were good and believed in Jesus. Did I have that wrong too? I don’t think anyone goes anymore. Spirit is consciousness and that’s all that remains. Maybe some people “feel” a lot less than I do in death, and talking from personal experience, death is easier the less you feel. Perhaps what you feel is directly proportionate to how bad you were in life and the less you feel the better person you were. Silence is preferable to hearing and sensing the pain of those you leave behind, that’s for sure. I guess that’ll diminish in like 30 years or so, when people start dying off, or even sooner if they’re like my husband and just stop caring about me and sever ties. So, erm, duh, not long to go, it’s only been like two months already! I find it hard to tell how long it’s been exactly, it’s not like I have a wrist watch or even the sun or moon. All I have are my Mommy’s tears. They change depth depending on what day it is. I’m not even sure whether it’s every day her sobs torture me, for all I know, it could be every hour or every week. I believe it is most probably daily, as there seems to be long gaps, and this is how I measure time, fresh levels of grief. New tears equals new day.

Well, three “days” ago, something terrible happened. I couldn’t bear to listen, and so I said the Lord’s Prayer repeatedly in my mind. I didn’t want to know what was going on. It was harrowing. I know they weren’t talking about my funeral because that happened a few weeks ago and I quite enjoyed that, it was so funny listening to all kinds of crap that people never really thought of me in life. How strange it is to be unable to laugh or even smile. I pray a lot, I don’t know why because I’m really starting to doubt God exists. If he did, surely he’d help me. I’ve begged him with all my heart, even the most mean spirited of folk would come to my rescue and so I know God would too, if he were there. The only other thing I have is song, and I sing. I use music to drown out sounds and stifle feelings I can’t stand. I sing to amuse myself too. Well, Death, you couldn’t steal that now could you!

How do I feel “today”? I don’t know. Things are a little creepy today to be honest, most days skip along uneventfully. Miserably. I know I said the weight of my Mother’s pain breaks my heart, but somehow today her lack of sorrow hurts even more. I knew it would happen, and don’t get me wrong, I don’t want her to be sad; I just want her to keep loving me. I call out to her, please, Mom, please love me. She does not hear me. I turn my attention to my Dad. He is talking. He never talks. Something has changed. Wait. He is talking to me. They both are. They are talking to me. I find it so difficult to hear at times, I’m not hearing, I’m reading their thoughts and I’m not a good at it. They’re saying something about twenty seven. I guess it’s my birthday, but, surely, it can’t have been nine months since my passing. It just can’t have been that long.

I freeze, waiting for the truth. Suddenly, I realise there are several people around me. It’s as if I am in the room with them, except, I can’t see, hear or touch them. I feel something, I feel alive. Something is suddenly different, and then for a second I feel my Mother kiss my cheek and hold my hand. I hear her tell me she loves me and then she says goodbye. I instantly realize what’s happening, and as I feel my life drain away from my physical body, I flick open my eyes to see my family sat around me. They are all so much older, so very many years have passed by. I close my eyes again and with my bodily voice, I call out to Jesus Christ.

I asked Copyhouse Press for a copy of this book to review. I read the previous book by Mr Lawton, titled “No Photographs”, and was interested enough to want to know more about his life. Therefore, I asked for this copy and I am glad I did. I read it in a couple of days, I couldn’t put it down.

This book is something of an extension to the last and we get to find out a lot more. I can feel that even through all his trials that Keith has kept his sense of humour, something I imagine has carried him a long way in life. Unfortunately, and very, very understandably, he has also held on to a little anger, or so it seems to me. This is not necessarily a bad thing, and is quite possible the attitude that will get something done about the despicable treatment of our society’s children. However, I feel it a sad set of affairs that a person should have to do this to begin with, let alone carry the echoes of abuse inflicted on their own identity by the wicked sins of others.

I do not feel I can do this astounding book justice in this meagre summing up that I am offering. To understand this boy’s journey, you must read it for yourself. Let him be the one to bring you to the heart of the issue and then let him be your companion as he guides you through, with his wonderfully light-hearted spin on his sad life story.

This man will inspire you, he will rile your sense of justice, but more importantly, he will make you realise that the power of one is mighty.

Let Keith Lawton be the voice that shouts at the top of its lungs in defence of all the little voices who still silently scream.

This book goes on sale on 1st October 2016 and you can get it everywhere or you can just click RIGHT HERE